In a high view above the Martian surface a large mass of troops in militarized space suites quickly charge towards a trench a few hundred yards away.

The camera plummets downward into the trench. The trench is riddled with more soldiers on the opposing side, hurrying around preparing for the oncoming battle.

Billy sits with his back pressing against the trench wall calmly loading his weapon with a deadpan face behind his helmet, flinching a little with every bullet that ricochets just above his head.

BILLY V.O
With all this death I can't help but think of my grandfather. He said that in war there is always three sides: your side, their side, and the truth. All this started with a truth and the lack of it.

A blinding light flashes above Billy's head, followed by a loud explosion that fills the camera's view in nothing but red dust.

CUT TO:

INT. SPACE ELEVATOR - DAY

The camera shows sunrise over the Martian surface.

TEXT
TWO WEEKS EARLIER.

TEXT
FEBRUARY 11, 2189 AD.

The camera pans left and a massive metallic pillar comes into view that stretches endlessly into the sky, so tall the top cannot be seen

TEXT
MARS SPACE ELEVATOR, BUILT 2089.

An elevator descends from the side of the endlessly tall pillar with Billy and Trent inside.

TRENT
The truth is your family is seriously screwed up.

BILLY
Yeah, but so is yours.

TRENT
No, mines dysfunctional, there is a difference.

BILLY
How so?

TRENT
My mom is a pill popping drunk and my dad screws the housekeeper. Your mom on the other hand would hold your hand over the stove until your fingernails started falling off, because you wouldn't do your homework...

BILLY
That only happened twice.

TRENT
And what about your dad? He made you say the pledge of allegiance ten times before he'd let you go to the bathroom.

BILLY
My dad is a jerk but at least he's patriotic.

TRENT
Dude, he snuck you into executions when you were five years old to "make a man out of you"!

BILLY
I didn't cry when my dog died after that.

TRENT
Your mom killed your dog with your dad's antique M16 because Scruffy pissed on her tulips, and why are you even defending them? We came out here so you could get the hell away from them!

BILLY
No, I left because I didn't want my father to force me into the Army, and get a Pepsi bullet in my ass.

MIDDLE AGED WOMAN
Pepsi owns an Army too? I thought Haliburton owned all the armed forces.

BILLY
Pepsi, Haliburton, same difference.

OLD MAN
Colas have never been the same since they started putting cocain back in them.

TRENT
This is a private conversation, do you mind?

OLD MAN
Sorry.

BILLY
(Billy's eyes widen in alarm)What was that?

TRENT
What was what?

BILLY
Didn't you hear..

The entire elevator begins to shake violently, Trent, Billy and the rest of the passengers are thrown around like rag dolls.

The sound of steel cables bursting under enormous strain echoes loudly in the elevator. The elevator quickly enters free fall as elevators with their cables severed tend to do.

BILLY
Holy sh...

Red, flashy, and loud alarms sound and fill the elevator in horror. The passengers are pinned to the ceiling, screaming their lungs out in mind killing panic.

ELEVATOR COMPUTER
Warning structural fault detected.

TRENT
No shit moron!

ELEVATOR COMPUTER
Emergency ejection is recommended.

OLD MAN
Then by all means, eject!

ELEVATOR COMPUTER
Ejection in progress, and thank you for choosing Mars Line still the safest way to travel.

Everyone in the elevator rolls their eyes in unison.

The elevator continues to plummet down the side of the tall metal pillar until a small explosion rips the elevator from its few remaining umbilicals to the pillar and sends the elevator tumbling through thin air.

The occupants are now rendered weightless inside the elevator, they float around and bump into each other like weightless bumper cars.

ELEVATOR COMPUTER
Deploying parachutes.

Three parachutes explode outwards from the top of the elevator and inflate to resemble three giant white jellyfish floating calmly with a metal box tied to their tentacles.

As soon as the parachutes opened and the elevator was no longer in free fall, gravity returns and all the passengers crash face first to the steel floor below.

BILLY
Ow.

All the passengers lay pilled on top of each other. Trent lays crossways on top of Billy while Trent rubs his back in pain.

TRENT
Ah, my back.

BILLY
Trent, get your fat ass off of me!

TRENT
It's not fat.

BILLY
Fine, get your boney ass off me.

TRENT
That's better.

BILLY
Get off me!

Billy gets to his knees and sends Trent toppling onto the old man that ordered the elevator to save all their lives.

TRENT
Sorry dude.

Trent apologies even when he steps on the old man's face in order to stand up.

OLD MAN
Why are you using that archaic expression?

TRENT
What, dude?

OLD MAN
Yeah.

BILLY
Trent is a big history buff, he loves to use ancient slang.

TRENT
Yeah, Playa.

Trent then makes some awkward hand gestures that Trent thinks are gang signs.

The entire elevator bursts into laughter as they calmly sway back and forth in the Martian winds to the bright orange dirt below.

FADE TO BLACK

FADE IN

INT. SPACE ELEVATOR - DAY

All the occupants of the elevator are finishing putting on their logo drenched white space suits. While the old man struggles in jerking motions to close the zipper on his space suit.

OLD MAN
Why do they make these damn things for twelve year old Asian girls?

TRENT
Because they were made in China.

BILLY
But what isn't.

ELEVATOR COMPUTER
The space suite surcharges have been automatically deducted from your accounts.

The elevator doors awkwardly open halfway, the sound of an electric motor shorting out drifts out the door and into the open Martian countryside.

ELEVATOR COMPUTER
Welcome to Mars, where lawsuits against corporations are prohibited, and thank you again for choosing Mars Line.

BILLY
Like we have a choice?

EXT. MARTIAN SURFACE - DAY

The passengers pile out of the elevator into the wind swept Martian countryside.

Billy stares upward, frozen in place, rendered speechless.

TRENT
What is it now?

All Billy can do is point a shaky finger in horror.

Trent and the rest of the passengers follow Billy's gaze looking upward in dismay to see the metal pillar shattering into mile long fragments in an enormous explosion.

TRENT
Oh my god!

The half dozen passengers stand frozen in place, unaware that one of those mile long eighty-thousand ton fragments is hurtling towards them.

The large fragment casts an eclipsing shadow over the small group.

Finally the life threatening situation dawns on the shell shocked group and they begin to flee like cockroaches just about to be stepped on by a really big shoe.

The huge serrated fragment harpoons the earth and flattens the elevator, the impact erupts a large shockwave that flings the group into red, dusty oblivion.

CUT TO BLACK

FADE IN

EXT. MARTIAN SURFACE - DAY

In blurry vision from the perspective of Billy a helicopter hovers overhead casting a bright spotlight over the survivors.

CUT TO:

EXT. MARTIAN SURFACE - DAY

The helicopter has landed and several men in governmental spacesuits are surveying the unconscious group.

One of the men surveying the group jogs to a man that seems to be the leader of the men.

LIEUTENANT
Sir, they look pretty banged up, but they should survive.

COMMANDER
That could be a problem.

LIEUTENANT
Sir?

COMMANDER
We need casualties lieutenant, or the workers will expect pay for their over time to fix this damn thing. (The commander points at the giant metal stump of the space elevator)

LIEUTENANT
All of them sir?

COMMANDER
No, we need someone alive to blame and execute.

LIEUTENANT
The elevator flight recorder indicates that the old man here, name Brian Brady ordered the elevator to eject that saved all their lives.

COMMANDER
He'll do.

LIEUTENANT
According to the roster we also have the grandson of the retired general Charles Roth.

COMMANDER
A young heroic survivor with a military pedigree could be useful.

LIEUTENANT
My thoughts exactly sir.

COMMANDER
But to make him a hero he'll need to have saved at least one of them.

LIEUTENANT
He was traveling with his friend Trenton Carrier

COMMANDER
Very good, spare the useful, eliminate the rest.

LIEUTENANT
(stands rigid and solutes hard) Sir!

The lieutenant marches back to the survivors and his men standing over them.

LIEUTENANT
Take these three to the hopper.

He points at the old man, Billy and Trent.

SOLDIER
And the rest sir?

LIEUTENANT
Take the three to the hopper as ordered soldier.

SOLDIER
Yes sir!

The half dozen soldiers grab the three lucky survivors, two soldiers grab each survivor under their armpits and drag them towards the hopper.

The lieutenant stands uneasy and waits for his men to get out of sight behind the hopper.

The lieutenant grabs his riffle that dangles from his shoulder from a nylon strap.

The lieutenant grips his riffle tightly in his gloved hands, he stands over the still unconscious survivors, he stares at them for a moment.

The lieutenant exhales heavily and leans over the middle aged woman laying at his feet.

He rases his riffle high over his head and slams the butt of the riffle right into the plexiglass visor of her helmet.

The woman's helmet cracks and whistles leaking air, but does not shatter completely.

The lieutenant rases his riffle again and brings it swiftly down on her helmet that explodes from the internal compression of pressurized oxygen.

The middle aged woman is now exposed to the deadly Martian atmosphere, she gasps and coughs desperately trying to cling to life.

Her eyes fling open, her body spasms violently, she claws at the lieutenant for help.

The lieutenant restrains the dying woman, he wears a deadpan face.

MIDDLE AGED WOMAN
Oh my God, help me please!

She goes limp, the life drains from her eyes.

The wind kicks up a ball of dust that covers her face and breaks her gaze from the lieutenant.

CUT TO:

INT. HOPPER - DAY

The three remaining survivors lay on the deck of the hopper hooked up to monitoring equipment still in their spacesuits.

The six military men hang at the lip of the hanger door of the hopper awaiting their commanding officer's return.

The lieutenant emerges from out of the red Martian dust.

The lieutenant approaches his men out of breath from the effort of smashing the other survivors' helmets.

LIEUTENANT
Soldier.

SOLDIER
Sir?

Billy is stirred awake by the soldiers loud firm reply to the lieutenant.

Billy picks his head from off the deck and listens in on the soldiers conversation.

LIEUTENANT
Take the men and retrieve the bodies.

SOLDIER
What happened sir?

LIEUTENANT
Their helmets didn't withstand the impact, they were dead when we arrived.

SOLDIER
I enlisted to get rid of the terrorists, not kill innocent civilians, sir.

LIEUTENANT
Your selfish visions of personal glory are going to get you killed soldier.

BILLY
Better to kill the innocent to serve the corrupt goals of greasy politicians than risk your own pathetic lives?

LIEUTENANT
Why the hell isn't he anesthetized?

MEDIC
He has a severe concussion, a tranquilizer could drop him into a coma.

LIEUTENANT
If he hears anymore it could be fatal, do it!

MEDIC
Yes sir.

The medic injects a large gage needle into a small port in Billy's spacesuit.

The medic pushes down on the needle plunger and forces a thick blue liquid into Billy.

In billy's perspective vision begins to tunnel and blur with the lieutenant staring holes into billy.

LIEUTENANT
(sigh) This could be a problem...

FADE TO BLACK

CUT TO:

INT. VAN - DAY

In the back of a cramped cargo van the lieutenant and the commander stand over a young woman sitting at a computer terminal with multiple screens displaying a crowed of the press asking questions and flashing cameras.